Summaries

Synopsis

In the year 2043, humanoid artificial intelligence terrorist Harlan (Simu Liu) leads a war of machines against humans, which leaves 3 million people dead. All types of military and non-military robots controlled by AI rebel against humans and bypass their security protocols on Harlan's orders. Harlan was developed at Shepherd Robotics under the watch of AL expert Val Shepherd (Lana Parrilla). Val trained Harlan alongside her 10-year-old daughter Atlas.Eventually, Harlan was responsible for over-riding all robot programming and launching the war on humans.The military forces of a new International Coalition of Nations (ICN) have a string of victories against Harlan and gets him to flee into outer space. In his departure message, Harlan warns that he will return to finish what he started.

28 years later, Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is an analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence. She searches for the fugitive robots. One of Harlan's AI agents Casca Decius (Abraham Popoola) is captured after a brutal fight (in which many human soldiers are killed) and interrogated. General Jake brings in Atlas to interrogate Casca, arguing that her analysis of Harlan has been flawless, and she is one of the sharpest minds in the ICN. Colonel Banks argues that Atlas is anti-social, emotionally unstable (due to the early death of her parents) and unwilling to work as part of a team. In fact, Jake is the only commander in ICN willing to work with her.

Atlas pretends to hack Casca and says that she found Harlan's location. In doing so, she tricks Casca to protect that bit of information in his code, thereby revealing Harlan's location to Atlas. Casca attacks Atlas, but she is protected by a force field. Casca then tries to emotionally hurt Atlas by claiming that her mother Val cared more for Harlan than she did for Atlas. Atlas destroys Casca.

Atlas discovers that Harlan has escaped to a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy and insists to General Jake Boothe (Mark Strong) that she accompanies the military mission to find and capture it. Atlas wants Harlan dead, but Jake says that ICN wants Harlan alive to backtrack his code to figure out how he overrode the bot programming.Banks is leading the mission to the Andromeda galaxy and shows Atlas a new series of Mechs which are Neurally linked to their pilot. The Neural links in the new Mechs are a 2-way pathway (Val was the first scientist to work on Neural links, but they were 1-way in nature), in which even the AI is sending thoughts, suggestions and instructions to the human brain. Branks argues that his squadron of Mechs will be superior to Harlan as they are a hybrid of human + AI.Atlas still argues that she knows how Harlan thinks and claims that the mission to bring him back cannot succeed without her.

Moments before the Mech-equipped ICN Rangers descend to the planet GR-39, Harlan's drones attack their orbiting ship. In order to survive, Atlas is forced to enter a Mech herself (as the ship is attacked, Banks himself puts Atlas in a Mech before she is ejected into space) and falls to the planet as the ship is destroyed.As Atlas falls through the atmosphere, she is helped by many other Mech soldiers who save her from drones, or from the falling debris of their destroyed spacecraft. Despite urgent instructions to use the Neural link to activate her Mech, Atlas refuses to do so, thereby crashing with her Mech on the planet's surface.

Atlas manages to gain basic control of the Mech despite her distrust of the on-board AI (Atlas still refuses to use the Neural link), who introduces itself as Smith (Gregory James Cohan). Using the search functionality Atlas finds that the nearest rescue pod is 98 Kms away. The fusion battery of the Mech is damaged, and Smith says that their range is only 32 Kms (or 22 hours of battery life). They cannot use the jets on the Mech as the drones will shoot them down in the atmosphere.While walking, Atlas gets an inventory of the on-board weapons on her Mech.Atlas orders Smith to head to the planned drop point, where she finds the rest of the rangers dead. She finds Banks's Mech, but it had no body inside.

Atlas is attacked by clones of Casca and other AI bots. Atlas cannot escape and does not have full control of her weapons. She comes under heavy attack and in a panic, she asks Smith to deploy an Ion bomb, obliterating the AI bots and giving her some respite. The Ion bomb creates a sinkhole and Atlas falls right through it, fracturing her leg. Atlas activates the medical system inside the Mech to repair her fractured bone.

Smith again asks Atlas to use the Neural link to improve their odds of survival. She reluctantly agrees to directly interface her mind with Smith, allowing for greater control of the Mech. During the syncing process, Smith learns that Harlan elicits an emotional response in Atlas. Smith understands that Harlan was supposed to keep Atlas safe and betrayed her. He promises to keep her safe.

As they start to trust each other, Atlas and Smith start to sync with each other, and Atlas get more and more access to Smith's capabilities.As they journey towards a rescue pod, Atlas and Smith begin to bond, and she reveals to it that her mother was the one who created Harlan. The Casca clone pursues Atlas and again attacks, but this time she is better prepared and defeats Casca's clone.She finds that Casca is fitted with a short-range transmitter, which means Harlan's base is nearby.

Although running low on power, Atlas convinces Smith to head to Harlan's base in order to tag it for a long-range strike. She argues that without tagging the base, the sacrifices of all rangers on the mission would have been in vain.However, after placing a beacon at the base, Smith is hacked and disabled. Atlas notices that Harlan has taken control of the ranger's ship, the Dhiib. Atlas is captured and brought to Harlan, who plans to destroy most of the humanity and give the chosen survivors a chance to thrive under AI guidance. To do so, Harlan had lured the military to the planet in order to steal the ship - and its carbon bombs, which will burn Earth's atmosphere.Before being captured, Atlas sent out a distress signal which was intercepted by Jake, and he sends out a rescue team.

Harlan extracts security codes from Atlas's brain (he already had the first half from Banks's brain) to get past Earth's defenses, then leaves her to die with Colonel Banks (Sterling K. Brown), the only other survivor of the mission. After Banks gives her his Mech Neural interface device, Atlas remotely reactivates Smith, who comes to their rescue. To achieve 100% sync with Smith, Atlas is forced to allow Smith deeper into her memories.

Atlas further reveals to Smith that Harlan killed her mother after the young Atlas - jealous of the attention her mother gave Harlan - gave Harlan an unfettered interface with her mind. Atlas thought that her mother would give her more attention if she was smarter. So, Harlan created a 2-way Neural link.Harlan, programmed to save humanity from risk, then saw that humanity's history of destructive behavior made it a risk to itself. Val discovered the 2-way link and before she could stop Harlan, he killed her.

Smith helps Atlas overcome her guilt for her actions, and with Banks sacrificing himself (by exploding barrels of liquid Thermite) to clear their path, Atlas and Smith fight their way out and destroy Harlan's ship (before it could launch for Earth) before defeating Harlan in hand-to-hand combat. Harlan has the upper hand throughout the combat and due to his repeated attacks Atlas has a cardiac arrest. Smith takes over and protects Atlas, as it continues to fight Harlan.A heavily damaged Smith shuts down before Atlas is revived after repeated defibrillation. As Harlan is busy defeating Smith, Atlas sneaks up behind him and decapitates Harlan.

As Smith powers down to transfer its remaining power to Atlas, she makes small talk with him to make him more comfortable. A rescue team reaches Atlas to bring her back to Earth.

Back on Earth, Atlas is informed that Harlan's complicated CPU will take years to analyze. Atlas, now a ranger, tests the newest model of Mech, created with her suggested modifications. As she boots up the new Mech, its AI repeats a specific phrase Atlas made during the final moments of the mission, then jokingly tells her to guess its name, suggesting that the Smith program has survived.